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Foreign Grocery Friday: The Sugar Roti of Ayutthaya, Thailand

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

About an hour outside of Bangkok is a ginormous UNESCO world heritage site more than worth the sidetrip. It's Ayutthaya, which most people may better recognize as a word sometimes featured on Thai take-out menus. Well, it's a city too. And actually it was one of the world's largest cities at one time, back when it was the capital of Siam. Like any great power it had its foes, and the Burmese army trashed the place in the 1700s. That doesn't mean they wiped out the culture of the place, however, and one tasty bit remains in the Ayutthaya Roti.

Roti are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia, and here and there elsewhere around the world as well. It's a round bread, done here like a floppy, tissue-thin tortilla almost, but then added with a filling of spun flavored sugar threads. It's essentially roti with sai mai or 'silk thread.'

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